It is often said that obfuscation is the purpose of journalism. And when China is involved, journalism gets reduced to a free-for-all orgy - a system wherein the journalist knows that whatever is said will be readily believed since China is being portrayed as the villain. That dictum certainly holds true of this article.
The author knows little about the border dispute or the 1962 war, but the way in which he/she claims to be an expert is rather entertaining to watch. It is very clear that no homework has been done, since the article misses most of the basic facts about the war and its causes.
1. China is hardly being "capricious" when it issues paper visas. It was simply responding to India's refusal of a visa to a Chinese Consul General who was due to visit Manipur (article), without citing any reasons. That story did not reach the national press, so the Indian public remains ignorant about it. This point was also mentioned by this newspaper itself (article) but it appears that the author didn't even bother to read the newspaper that he works for while researching the topic.
2. China has done much, much more than just signal "a readiness to settle the dispute along just such lines". The east-west swap idea was initially proposed by Zhou Enlai to Nehru in 1960, two years BEFORE the war. Deng Xiaoping then repeatedly offered this deal again and again to India on a number of occasions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but it was refused each time.
An agreement that could have been the best under the circumstances (or any circumstances, for that matter) and would not have required any exchange of territory - it was basically equivalent to changing the current status-quo borders into formal boundaries. This extremely practical, common-sense, adult solution, a solution through which India would receive about 75 percent of the total disputed territory (Arunachal Pradesh - which it currently controls anyway) while China would receive only the barren tundra (Nehru's phrase) of Aksai Chin - an area about which even Nehru said in Parliament: "......this place, Aksai Chin area, is distinguished completely from other areas. It is a matter for argument which part belongs to us and which part belongs to somebody else. It is not clear". China almost embarrassed itself by offering the proposal again and again to the stubborn Indian government, only to get snubbed each time.
Hence, to say that China has "signalled a readiness to settle the dispute along just such lines" becomes the understatement of the century. As if subtly indicating that India or some other party proposed this solution and China "signalled a readiness" to accept it. China has resolved 12 out of its 14 land border disputes with its neighbors quite peacefully (article)), keeping away far less territory, on average, than it received, and was trying to do the same with India.
3. It is also clear that the author has not even been following the Indian press. It is actually the Indian media that engages in a jingoistic, scare-mongering rhetoric about Chinese activities on the border and prints downright lies, the most recent example being an astronomical observatory in the Aksai Chin area, reports that were later proved to be false, or to take another famous example, a Chinese article about breaking up India into 30 pieces was reported as coming from an "authoritative source" in the Indian press, when in reality it had just appeared in an unofficial forum. Hence, saying that it is China's "nationalist social-media activists and editors" that might escalate tensions seems to serve no purpose other than to indicate that the author has a wide imagination.
In that sense, the Indian media rhetoric is not much different, in principle, to what is being done here at this newspaper. The only difference being that the Indian press does openly what The Economist does subtly. One favorite technique is to use vague and ambiguous terminology, for example the word "may" in the sentence, "As the years slip by, China may grow less interested in a quiet border"
Another thing that MAY happen: The author of this article may actually start behaving like a journalist and do better research next time.
Maitreyahttp://indiaschinablog.blogspot.com/

In Mr. Nehru's book "Discovery of India" published one year before Independence, there was a map which showed that the border between India and China was along the foothills of the Himalayas. However, when he became Prime Minister, he seized the entire area from the foothills to the top of the Himalayas from China in his infamous "Forward Policy" of aggression against China.

It is interesting to note that this Economist report is from "Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh". I wish to point out that Tawang is a Chinese name and Arunachal Pradesh is an Indian name given to the territory seized from China by India. Thus the key words "Forward Policy", "Tawang" and "Arunachal Pradesh" should tell impartial readers conclusively that China was the victim of Indian aggression. It was Nehru who betrayed China in 1962 when he went back on his earlier policy of "Indi Chini bhai bhai"

It is very funny to read the arguement that since the name Tawang is chinese, Arunachal pradesh is chinese territory! First of all, Tawang is not chinese, it is tibbeten name, and historically, tibet has not been part of China, they have acquired it forcefully. Secondly, on border areas, same or similar languages are spoken on both sides, and hence the names also are similar or same, does it mean that territory belongs to other country? Going by that logic, many areas in US should go to UK, many places in Europe should go to UK, Half of Nepal & Shrilanka should be part of India and whole of meico should be part of Spain!

China was agrressor and they occipied the indian territory. Ofcourse, there were some foolish decisions by Nehru which further complicated the matter and resulted in India's defeat.

Now, I don't think anyone (including politicians) in India wants war with China, not sure about chinese intentions though!

Look up the 1903-1904 British Invasion of Tibet (or as some may choose to euphemistically call it "British expedition to Tibet"). The invasion led to thousands of local deaths from Maxim machine guns by British forces. This was all done in the name of "enforcing trade", but had the intention of annexing Tibet to British India. The invasion was concluded by the 1906 treaty Anglo-Chinese Convention.
Readers of TE, look up different sources and compare, educate yourselves before giving opinion just based on one source. The Chinese media is often very propagandist, Western medias are often a lot more open relative to Chinese ones, but that does not mean everything they say is true. But you may be surprised in some cases even prestigious publications can be incredibly biased when it knows its readers have little means to verify different sources. Such as in this issue, a lot of information is kept from you to form a distorted view that makes you believe what they want you to believe. For example did you know that the British (publishers of this magazine) invaded Tibet 1903-1904? Did you know that the current Dalai Lama was appointed as a baby by Chiang Kai Shek, who was at the time director of the KMT and effective leader of China? You may be surprised how much information your trusted publications choose to omit because it doesn't support their views.

Losing a war in 1962 which India provoked with the backing of the CIA is bad enough. Having such self inflicted pain due to the inability to accept reality and defeat for 50 years is even worse. With all the corrpution and the "Hindu Rate of Growth" of -70%, Indians are there own worse enemies. Losing India to the Maoists who have by now liberated 1/3 of India is only a matter of time.

(1) Nehru felt confident that India could cow China who would not dare to fight back because of American and Western backing for India----at that time

The cold-war . -- American led "CONTAINMENT and ISOLATION" policy of China was in full force and China was successfully isolated and contained by American power and global influence

Nehru was confident India was overall much more powerful than China and that India was in a better position

(2) Chinese good manners and civility was taken by India as a sign of weakness

CHINA withdrew to the pre-war position--- because it wanted to prove to the world that she had "walked the talk" --- because in 1956, at the BANDUNG Conference -- China had proudly announced her Policy of the "FIVE PRINCIPLES OF PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE"

"It may not help China to use India as a means of demonstrating 'the power of the Middle Kingdon' - as she did in 1962. It is inherent in China's history and culture to want to 'teach a lesson' to those that disagree with her."

It seems to me that teaching lessons don't happen unless the other party that has a border dispute with China does something that provokes the situation or changes the game ina fundamental way. For instance, if an opposite party sets up and outpost or does something unilaterally to solidify their calim on the disputed territory. The article itself stated that:

The indian side "established outposts behind the Chinese troops in Aksai Chin".

Which to anyone would actually be a rather provocative act. As far as I can tell, Chinese foreign policy is loathe to use force or even act in anger if disputed terriroties are left at unresolved or fuzzy status. That's the trigger, I think.

We are told of the argument that colonial/imperial borders should not be used as a reference for national border disputes. At least that's the argument from a pro-Tibet point of view -- never mind that even amongst mainstream historians the Qing was China, let's assume that they were all mistaken. Clearly that applies to British India as well? If not what about French Indo-China or Spanish/American Philippine Islands?

This is another example of the Indian physche and would be very funny if it wasn't so tragic. The 1962 border war with china was actually only a small defeat blown out of proportions by some Indians especially the Indian media. It didn't cause the collapse of India unlike the British invasion which resulted in countless brutal wars finally ending in 150 years of British occupation and colonisation. It seems that Indians would happily accept a monumental defeat inflicted by the white man but would shudder at a small defeat by an Asian. To this day a Sahib is still a Sahib.

Good article, but could have avoided flippant lines like 'Most of Indian soldiers ran outran them...'

Those are some very very brave men you're talking about. Who fought with stones and bricks but didn't take a step back. Who froze to death with their guns still in their hands, who lost their limbs from frostbite but never their will to fight.
Their 303 rifle bolts froze in the cold. They had one single sweater as protection against the cold, no proper shoes and their helmets distorted in the cold.
An entire brigade died to its last man but stood their ground.

"Tibetan script and language have more in common with Indian scripts and languages than China's."

Written Vietnamese uses the latin alphabets, so does Indonesian or even Malay. In all three cases, the affinity to European languages is rather superficial. Mainstream linguists continue to group Tibetan (and its various dialects) under the Sino-Tibetan language grouping.

The Indian caste system prevents Indians from being realistic about anything including her 1962 defeat by China. Being the biggest kleptocracy with an expanding Maoist insurgency already encompssing more than 1/3 of India, occuption problems in Kashmir, ethnic problems in Tamil Nadu etc. India would be hard pressed to stay in once piece. India will more likely unravel without even pressure from Pakistan let alone China. The odds for India to dissappear before China is 1000 to 1.

The borders of British India were established(forced) by the British government. All this fuss might have been avoided if the successor Indian/Pakistan governments had asked if the Afghan/Chinese governments had any problem with the established borders. The Chinese might have swapped part of Aksai Chin with Arunachal Pradesh. Pakistan would have had more problems with the Afghans (since they claimed everything up to the Indus) but a compromise could have been tried, such as joint control over certain areas. Krishna Menon was "inebriated with the exuberance of his verbosity" and was a disaster as defence minister; he believed showing the flag would cause the Chinese to retreat. No one asked him what would happen if Plan A failed? The benefit of the 62 war was that we got rid of Menon and started funding the Army, so that we could respond forcefully to Zulfi's 65 adventure.

The author should have at least wiki-ed the Sino-Indian war to have a more balanced view on a well- documented historical event. The conflict was largely caused by the arrogance and rigidity of the then Indian foreign policy. Too much self-righteousness and egotism... India, as a emerging power towards greatness, should demonstrate more confidence when facing its past - glorious or regrettable, and move on.